BOXOUSE DELUXE TINY CONTAINER HOME

Greetings from California! 🙂

The Port of Oakland holds and receives nearly 2.4 million shipping containers each a year. If Luke Iseman had hisway, Oakland would hold onto even more of them. Iseman is founder and CEO of Boxouse, a West Oakland-based startup that makes affordable housing out of shipping containers.

A used 20-foot container that’s eight feet high and eight feet wide retails for around $1,500. In less than a week, the Boxouse crew can cut out a door and window, add insulation, framing, and electric grid capabilities and market it as a bare-bones model for $9,000. More expensive than a month’s rent, to be sure, but for many Oaklanders, a fraction of what they might pay in a year.

Startup Boxouse sells “portable, affordable, beautiful smart homes” made from shipping containers (the “deluxe” edition costs $49,000 and includes shipping). Chief Executive Officer Luke Iseman, a Wharton graduate who previously ran Y Combinator’s hardware program, concedes that “container houses aren’t perfect” but says they can help ease housing shortages. He shares one with co-founder Heather Stewart that’s set up in an Oakland warehouse. They’re partly financing the business by renting out two others on Airbnb.

Boxouse offers higher-end models that retail for more, but even its most expensive model— a solar-powered, off-the-grid deluxe package with bathroom, kitchenette, and bedroom—retails for $49,000. The current median home price in Oakland is $685,000.

Iseman buys them used for about $2,000 each and retrofits them with the help of a half-dozen part-time workers.

Boxouses are designed for off-the-grid living, with a 1.5-kilowatt solar system that heats and powers the unit and its kitchenette.

An app can control smart windows and lights, as can a complimentary Alexa. In the works: alerts to port-a-potty vendors when the wastewater tank needs emptying.

THE VAULT

STYLE

TRY IT FOR YOURSELF

PINTEREST

Dwell Boxes is not a shipping container home construction company. While we do our best to make sure our information is accurate, please contact a professional shipping container home builder for information. Dwell Boxes is also a blog and does not independently sell shipping container houses and/or shipping container house plans. Content from this blog may be shared, providing it links back to the original site. Use of written content may be shared only with written consent. Dwell Boxes currently uses advertisements from a third-party advertising site in addition to occasional affiliate links.